The present invention relates to a method and a system for setting and displaying image acquisition duration information of a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus (hereinafter referred to as an MRI apparatus), wherein the duration required for acquiring an image is calculated beforehand and the remaining duration is displayed.
Generally, when image data are acquired by use of an MRI apparatus, a slice position of an object to be examined is predetermined by a doctor or some other qualified person. Once the slice position has been determined, the doctor need not attend to the apparatus during the image acquisition process. Therefore, the doctor is free from the task of acquiring image data during this duration.
Although, as is explained above, the doctor need not attend to the imaging apparatus during the image acquisition operation, the doctor does not know the image acquisition duration in advance in a conventional MRI apparatus. The doctor only knows the encoding information for the magnetic resonance (MR) signal data to be acquired.
During the imaging process, motion artifacts, or movements of the patient, cause blurring in an acquired image. One cause of MR imaging motion artifacts is the patient's anxiety due to not knowing the period of time remaining for completion of an image acquisition. This anxiety causes the patient to move and thus blur an acquired image.
Consequently, the development of a method which enables the displaying of the remaining duration by calculating an image acquisition duration and by counting until the image acquisition end time has been desired.